I love baseball. I love going to Camden Yards and watching the Orioles lose game after game play their hearts out. I always get a hot dog. My husband always gets Dipping Dots, Ice Cream of the Future. We haven’t been at all this year for some reason. We’re busy working around the house doing all the things that need to be done to a 100 year old home, I suppose.

And me personally? I’ve been on pins and needles all summer. I’ve been dreading this since January when we suspected that we would wait all summer to find out if our soon to be child from Vietnam was coming home or not. And wait we have. All. Summer. Long. It’s been difficult. Some days I’m convinced that we’ll get that sought after referral. Other days, I’m convinced that we won’t. For us, if we don’t get it, this will be the end. I turn 47 in October and feel that if this doesn’t work out, then I will just accept it, move on, and love my little precious guy who once wanted a brother so badly.

It’s the home stretch, this week. Do or die as they say in whatever business they say that in. A few more days is all we have before we know what God has in store for us and this child. A few more days.

And then September 1st comes and brings with it the end of the journey for so many hopeful families and orphans. The US will no longer allow adoptions from Vietnam as of that date, at least until Vietnam can get its problems under control. That could be a long time. Years maybe. In a way, I’m proud of the US for insisting that baby trafficking concerns are addressed and eliminated while other countries do not. No slight to them, of course. But, then I feel like, man, can’t we just look extra carefully at the referrals that are coming in while still allowing the adoptions to continue? Does it really have to be all or nothing? These are children we’re talking about. Forget the parents who are waiting back here. Think of those kids. Babies. Toddlers. Even the blessed older children, who we would gladly welcome into our home. Think about them. Explain it to them. Because I can’t.

And so. The homestretch. For us, we might get really really lucky. I can tell you now, that for many other families and far too many children this is not going to happen. I hope God is watching and guiding us and those children when September mourning arrives.

On a lighter note, Little Boy G is sitting next to me with the two Wii controllers at his ears saying, “Hello? Mommy?”

During the difficult parts of this Vietnam adoption journey, I reached out to God to show me a sign that everything we were doing was good and right and that, in the end, everything would be okay. And, in each request, He has shown me His answers, in often blunt, always unambiguous ways.

That’s why today, when I asked Him to send me a sign that all will be well, and that we will bring our little boy home, I wasn’t surprised at His response.

On the way home from dinner at Mimi’s, I turned on the radio. This is not something I ever do these days, since Little Boy G requires my constant attention and I am more than happy to oblige. However, this time, he was otherwise engaged with a book in the back seat, and so, for the first time in a very long time, I tuned in to an FM radio station.

I think it was the first words that struck me in the song….”Let it go…Let it roll right off your shoulders. Don’t you know…The hardest part is over …”

And then it was the melody. Beautiful, sad, gentle. As I listened to the words, I knew it was the sign and so I listened intently to the rest of the song. So many things have happened during this adoption. The uncanny delays in finishing our paperwork that left me crying in the middle of the night. The looming shutdown of the Vietnam program. And then, just when we thought there was no hope left, we were told the story of a boy. The unexpected boy whose own heartache eclipsed, by far, our own. As if it were fate. As if we never really had control of where we were going…we were just along for the ride. And then, these words…”Our lives are made in these small hours. These little wonders. These twists and turns of fate…”

I listened to the song again when I got home. I found out that it’s called Little Wonders by Rob Thomas. I’m not sure what God is trying to tell me, but He is trying to tell me something. All I know for certain right now is that I feel better after hearing this song. And that, after all, is what I was looking for, now isn’t it?

One final story to tell. But it’s important. I was looking online to find out the background on this song. I found something better. I found a quote by someone who had watched the movie in the theaters when it first came out. I copied the following passage below for you. I think his thoughts reflect something more profound than I had imagined. And that message from God is so much more clear to me now. My confusion about what He was trying to tell me is now cleared away–The message was not meant for me…it was meant for him and me…

“When I saw the movie in theatres, this song cut to the heart of me and made me cry. I have a tendency to be easily depressed, and I know that’s wrong because I know (intellectually) that God has a future and a hope for me. But depressing things had been happening in my life lately, and I felt like Lewis, like I had no real parents or anyone I could trust, and like I had nothing to look forward to but worse division in my family. I felt like God was speaking to me this whole movie, and especially during this song, that although it looks awful right now His plan for my life is rich and beautiful beyond what I’d ever hoped for. Things will not stay this bad, and he’s promised a beautiful future, with wholeness. All of that came right at me during this song, and I cried in the theatre (managed to hide it before anyone noticed :). I still find the song really encouraging, especially if I start to get an unrealistically pessimistic view of my future. Thanks, Rob.”

I knew nothing about the film, Meet the Robinsons, until last night. According to Wikipedia, the film begins by showing a young woman leaving her baby boy on the steps of an orphanage, where he lives thereafter. Twelve years later, this boy, called Lewis (Daniel Hansen and Jordan Fry), is a brilliant inventor of fantastic devices, but has yet to be adopted and fears that he will never do so. Convinced that his birth mother abandoned him against her will, he attempts to invent a memory-scanning machine that will allow him to remember his mother in the hopes that he can find her. His roommate, Michael “Goob” Yagoobian (Matthew Josten), becomes his assistant during long hours of building, which causes Goob’s Little League baseball team’s performance to suffer. Goob attempts to be supportive, but eventually tires of it.